Showing posts with label Republican nomination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican nomination. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Haley's Path Forward ...and more in response to New Hampshire

Nikki Haley's path to the the 2024 Republican presidential nomination may have more obstacles.

Leading the day at FHQ...


...for now. 

A day after an expectations-beating performance in New Hampshire, the former South Carolina governor faces a daunting task ahead in her one-on-one duel with Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Mired in the teens in the Granite state as recently as the holiday season, Haley rose as other candidates fell by the wayside. That cleared a path to a head-to-head with Trump, but the results in the New Hampshire primary did little to grease the skids for the former UN ambassador to rise much further. 

In fact, New Hampshire was a good state for Haley on paper: more college educated and fewer evangelical voters (than in Iowa), independents could participate, etc. And she still came up short. Still, the final polls made things looked bleaker than they turned out to be and that is not nothing. But exactly how much that something is worth remains to be seen. 

It buys Haley some time, but not much. And it is tough to chart out a viable path forward to the nomination, much less South Carolina on February 24. Viable path. There is a path, but it entails stringing together what little Haley's campaign can muster in the meantime. She is the headliner on the Trump-less primary ballot in Nevada. Yes, it is a beauty contest primary, and while a win promises no delegates, it may carry the distinction of garnering her more votes than Trump will receive in the Silver state caucuses two days later. Again, that is not nothing, but how much that particular something is worth is hard to gauge. A vote-rich "win" in the Nevada primary coupled with a win the caucuses in the Virgin Islands on February 8 probably does not hurt. 

But what does that buy Haley in two weeks' time? 

Maybe it grants her a bit more time, but it grants her time to consider that she is even further behind in the delegate count and that her home of South Carolina still does not offer much relief. Perhaps the polls in the Palmetto state will have moved by then. Maybe Nevada, the Virgin Islands and/or the campaign will spur such a change. But if the polls do not move, then, as FHQ noted yesterday, the cacophony of winnowing pressures from Republicans in the broader party network are only going to grow louder and the prospect of not just a loss at home, but a big loss, will loom large. 

Again, there is a path forward for Nikki Haley. Only, it is not a particularly good path. And it certainly gets her no closer to the nomination. 

But hey, if she can manage to bankroll it, then why not play it out, grab what delegates she can, cross her fingers that Trump's legal troubles catch up with him and head into the convention in good standing? Yeah, that is a path, too. In theory. It just is not a sustainable path. Whatever incentives the former president's courtroom drama provide to stay in the race, the winnowing pressures will more than offset. And that would affect any "good" standing she may have as the candidate with the second most delegates at the convention.

The convention is way off. Haley's concerns are more immediate. And her path? Filled with obstacles.


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All the New Hampshire results are not in, but it looks like the delegate count out of the Granite state is going to end at...
Trump -- 12 delegates 
Haley -- 10

But currently Haley is clinging to her tenth delegate. If she drops below 43.2 percent, then she will fall below the rounding threshold and that tenth delegate will become unallocated. Trump is not in a position to round up unless he approaches 57 percent of the vote. However, he would claim that unallocated delegate formerly in Haley's column because all unallocated delegates go to the winner of the primary. That would push Trump's total to 13 delegates in the state. 

UPDATE:


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Monday, April 10, 2023

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Three Tales of Would-Be 2024 Republican Candidates

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

Paul Steinhauser writing at Fox News updates the situation with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC):
"'This next week will provide clarity to how he’s thinking about 2024,' a Republican operative in Scott’s political orbit, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News."
Scott's itinerary over the coming week? 

April 12 in Iowa, April 13 in New Hampshire and April 14-15 in South Carolina. There just are not that many lines to read between here. A four day swing through the first three contests of the Republican presidential nomination process during an Easter recess says a lot about Scott's intentions. But then again, the travel primary is not the only area where Scott has been doing the sorts of things that aspiring presidential candidates do. 


...
Speaking of trips to South Carolina, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has been coaxed into visiting the Palmetto state early next week by backer and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell. It will be the governor's first trek to the home of the first-in-the-South presidential primary. One visit will be unlikely to cool the DeSantis-is-skipping-the-early-states narrative much, but as the most delegate-rich state among the first four on the calendar and the only one that allocates delegates in a winner-take-most fashion before March, South Carolina is a valuable piece of the delegate puzzle, whether part of a "long-haul strategy" or not.


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USA Today's Francesca Chambers profiled New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R), another potential candidate who has garnered some 2024 buzz. 
“'I don't believe in getting on stage to blow people up,' Sununu said. 'But if getting on the stage can help me direct the conversation back to those Republican fundamentals that we can all agree on, and I can get a lot of people excited, well, then there's value in doing that.' 

"Sununu said his mission after the midterm elections was, initially, to help the GOP become more likable and develop a better message. Election losses in 2022 demonstrated a need for the party to field strong candidates who appeal to independents and younger voters, he said."
There has been a considerable amount of the talk about 2024 resembling 2016, but much of it has applied to candidate strategy to winnow the field in order to take Trump down. A lot of that has missed the mark, failing to adequately account for the differences between 2015 and now. But here, Sununu sounds an awful lot like another candidate who ran in 2016, John Kasich. Affable guy focused on the issues is a strategy, but it is one that did not work in 2016 and does not, at least not at this time anyway, seem to have much of a home in the politics of the Republican Party. Again, that may change, but it does not seem to offer a viable path to the nomination. 

And unlike Kasich in 2016, Sununu may not have a path through his home state. New Hampshire certainly offers fewer delegates (and none that are allocated winner-take-all as in Ohio).


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Over at FHQ Plus...
  • Democratic draft delegate selection plans continue to be released and they continue to reveal elements of the 2024 process to come. Yes, that affects the Democratic process, but when it comes to hints about the timing of state-run primaries, that affects Republicans as well. 
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below.


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On this date...
...in 1984, Walter Mondale (D) took a sizable plurality win in the Pennsylvania primary, but he would only eclipse that total in two additional states (of five more wins) down the stretch. 

...in 2012, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination, effectively sealing an overall win for Mitt Romney.

...in 2020, Joe Biden (D) won in Alaska as Democrats in the Last Frontier completed their vote-by-mail party-run primary in the thick of a pandemic-affected primary season. 



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See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

Sunday, February 12, 2023

The Republican Rules for 2024 Present Some Calendar Opportunities

Understandably, there has been a lot of talk surrounding the changes to the Democratic Party presidential primary calendar for 2024. 

However, comparatively little attention has been paid to the calendar on the Republican side. That disconnect is, perhaps, even more unusual and interesting considering that the Republican presidential nomination process is the one where most of the action will be in 2023-24. Theirs is the more competitive of the ongoing nomination battles. But much of the relative quiet on the Republican calendar front is owed to the fact that the early calendar has been locked in since the Republican National Committee (RNC) adopted its rules for 2024 in April 2022. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada will be the first states. One may not yet know where exactly on the calendar each will fall, but they can fall, by rule, "no earlier than one month before the next earliest state."

Yet, thus far in 2023, there is little evidence that primary and caucus placement for the remainder of the states is a top priority for Republicans in state legislatures across the country. There is no rush, for example, to schedule primaries for a spot that represents "the next earliest state." And there is room to maneuver for that title. 

Here is how:

Beginning in the 2016 cycle, the RNC made a small change to its rules that in subsequent cycles has created a divide between the Republican and Democratic parties' presidential primary calendars. In 2012, both parties allowed all contests that were not Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to conduct primaries and caucuses as early as the first Tuesday in March. The Democratic Party continues to use that language. That is the point at which "the window" opens for non-exempt states to conduct contests.

But on the Republican side, the language changed. Instead of the first Tuesday in March it became March 1 during the 2016 cycle and it has stayed March 1 in the rules ever since. That mattered little in 2016 because March 1 was the first Tuesday in March. However, while the Democrats' first Tuesday in March position has remained anchored in place, the March 1 of the Republican rules shifts around from cycle to cycle. That was less consequential in 2020 when there was no sustained challenge to President Trump's hold on the Republican nomination.

However, in 2024, March 1 falls on a Friday, the Friday before what at this point looks to be Super Tuesday on March 5, 2024. That is the point on the calendar where the most states' primaries and caucuses are congregated and the date that is the most delegate-rich date on the calendar (at this time). That divide between the two parties' calendars presents an opportunity for states to potentially shift into a more advantageous position without penalty

Yet, again, there has been no effort undertaken thus far by Republican state legislators in particular to exploit that calendar divide between the parties. FHQ has raised the possibility of Democrats in Georgia and nationally offering a Saturday, March 2 spot as a compromise position to a Republican secretary of state who has to this point resisted efforts to move the Peach state primary deeper into February because of the prospect of national party penalties. Nothing, however, prevents other states from shifting into that same position or up to a day earlier to Friday, March 1. 

Part of the issue here is that the RNC rules stray not just from those of national Democrats but from how primary date scheduling laws are crafted on the state level. In the vast majority of cases, presidential primaries are affixed to a day on the calendar and not a particular date. State laws call for an election to take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November or the first Tuesday in March and not March 1, for instance. The latter moves around from cycle to cycle and could potentially sow voter confusion when a March 1 primary would be on a Friday in 2024 and then a Wednesday in 2028. 

That, however, is a thinking that hews closely to tradition, but not one that cannot be overcome. A state law that gets changed in, say, Oklahoma from the first Tuesday in March to simply March 1 uproots the contest from a typical Tuesday, but aligns the primary with RNC rules (as they exist now). And that change offers the benefit of being ahead of the first Tuesday in March where other states' contests have clustered. A modest benefit in 2024 would be a bigger bonus four years later when a March 1 primary would be nearly a week before the usual Super Tuesday.

Of course, that may benefit Republicans in Oklahoma, but would put Democrats in the Sooner state in much the same situation in which Michigan Republicans currently find themselves. That is, stuck in a noncompliant primary they are powerless to change in a state legislature controlled by the opposing party. That would create some headaches, but not for the party in power. 

But this is the sort of instability that is manifest when the national parties are not on the same page. They do not have to formally broker any sort of agreed upon point on the calendar at which non-exempt states can start holding primaries and caucuses, but it is clearly in both national parties' interests to have a uniform start time to "the window." It would cut down on these sorts of cross-party scheduling snafus that present problems from time to time, an issue similar to the divide that now exists in the early calendar lineup. In the end, state actors will be attracted to opportunities that allow their state to be showcased away from the rest of the pack. And states can play that against national parties that do not present a united front in return.

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

It Isn't Just the Democrats Who Are Shaking up the 2024 Presidential Primary Calendar

Ever since early December when the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee adopted President Biden's early calendar proposal there has been a lot of talk around here and elsewhere about how those changes may affect how the beginning of the 2024 presidential primary calendar develops. Bumping the South Carolina Democratic primary up to the first slot will likely have the effect of pushing at least the Iowa Republican caucuses and New Hampshire primary into January. 

But there may be some changes forthcoming at the end of the calendar as well. 

Last week the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced the dates of its 2024 national convention set to take place in Milwaukee. And the July 15 kickoff will trigger a new provision in the rules of the Republican Party amended earlier this year. It has been the case over the last few cycles that the RNC, much like their DNC counterparts, set a window in which most states can hold primaries and caucuses. On the Democratic side that Rule 12.A window runs from the first Tuesday in March through the second Tuesday in June. And the Republican equivalent for the last two cycles described in Rule 16(c)(1) has been from March 1 until the second Saturday in June. 

Only now, there is an additional OR phrase tagged on the back end of the defined Republican window. Contests must now be held on or before "the second Saturday in June in the year in which a national convention is held or less than forty-five (45) days before the national convention is scheduled to begin."

That is where the convention decision from last week comes into play. 45 days before July 15 is Wednesday, May 31, 2024. All Republican primaries and caucuses, then, must be completed by the end of May which, in turn, means that a handful of states are out of compliance (or will be) with June primary dates scheduled under various state laws. 

Five states and territories -- Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and Washington (DC) -- will all have to either change the dates of those contests or make alternate plans. Republican control at the state level in Montana and South Dakota means changes are more likely there than elsewhere in places where Democrats hold the levers of power. But changes will have to occur in those states as well. DC Republicans already had to deal with a similar issue -- one where the primary was too late to comply with RNC timing rules -- when a mid-June primary scheduled for the 2016 cycle forced the party to opt for a March convention. Without amended laws, the others will have to seek out state party-run paths to compliance if the current laws are left unchanged. 

Now, to be clear, like the beginning of the calendar where small delegate caches do not make a huge difference in the grand scheme of a nomination race, this change at the back of the calendar likely will not be decisive. Together those six states and territories would have comprised just under seven percent of the total number of Republican delegates at stake in 2020.1 However, this rules change will have the effect of further compressing the overall calendar. Not by much, but it will push the end of the calendar up by a couple of weeks while the DNC decision on their pre-window will widen it by about as much if not a little more once Iowa and New Hampshire settle into place for the Republican process. 

In the end, this is another way in which the two national parties have diverged in their thinking -- if not approach to -- the 2024 presidential primary calendar


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1 For Democrats, the share is even smaller. The five states amounted to nearly six percent of the total number of Democratic delegates in the 2020 cycle.


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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Running for 2024, but Running in 2024?

For years now, FHQ has trotted out a fairly simple question during the candidate emergence phase of the invisible primary. Increasingly that emergence occurs -- or more accurately can be seen occurring -- earlier and earlier. But then as now the parsimony of the question creates a powerful lens through which to view (prospective) presidential candidate activity long before primary voters begin to weigh in on just who each party's nominee will be.

Back in 2009, FHQ asked if anyone thought that Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) was not running for the 2012 Republican nomination and followed that up with another distinction. The former Minnesota governor could run for the 2012 nomination in 2009 but the question at that point was whether Pawlenty would actually be running in 2012.

As it turned out Pawlenty did formally announce a bid. But there was more: trips to Iowa, the formation of an exploratory committee, early biographical ads from aligned political action committees. And outside of the candidate's and his campaign's (direct) control there was early polling and general chatter in Republican circles about a Pawlenty bid.

But for all of that activity, Tim Pawlenty never made it to any of the primaries and caucuses in 2012. Instead, his run was derailed by a third place showing in the August 2011 Ames Straw Poll, an event made all the more important because the Pawlenty team had made the Hawkeye state make or break for the former governor. 

Now, why the reminiscence about Tim Pawlenty?

Well, aside from the origin story for the running for but not necessarily in maxim, it speaks to how one should observe the action of (prospective) candidates in the increasing visible but still invisible primary. Candidates run all of the time and many do not get as far or do as much as Tim Pawlenty once did from 2009-2011. Furthermore, candidates need not formally announce as Pawlenty did to have been considered a candidate running for a party's nomination. Take the journey of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2018-2019. There was never any announcement that he was going to seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But there was PAC activity, hiring and trips to the usual nomination haunts. There no doubt was other activity that happened more quietly, signals that Brown got from other elites (donors, DNC members, etc.) that did not see the light of day in any reporting. But Brown ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination before ultimately passing.

And there are already signs that this is happening already in the 2024 presidential nomination cycle. There has been no lack of questions about whether both President Biden and former President Trump will run in 2024. In fact, Dave Hopkins had a wonderful piece up just yesterday in response to a Washington Post article about Biden advisors "working under the assumption that he [Biden] will once again top the Democratic ticket in 2024."

As Hopkins said, of course he is. 

And that decision, formal or not, has implications for how other prospective candidates will behave. That is true on the Republican side with respect to what Trump might do. It is not, for example, a secret that former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, is running for the 2024 Republican nomination. It just is not. And while Haley may give speeches this and next year and work through her PAC toward electing Republicans across the country in the midterm elections in 2022, none of that guarantees that she will be running in 2024. And that may or may not be because Trump throws his hat back in the ring. 

Yet just because a candidate does not run in any contests does not mean that they did not run for the nomination in that cycle. It just means that roadblocks appeared in any number of forms during the invisible primary instead of voters directly rejecting that candidate in Iowa or New Hampshire or in some other state on down the line on the primary calendar

But yes, there are candidates who are running for 2024 even now, three years out.



Wednesday, February 17, 2021

A Glance at Where the 2024 Republican Delegate Selection Rules Stand

Much was made last summer during convention season when the Republican National Convention carried over the party's 2016 platform and adopted it with no changes at the scaled down 2020 convention in Charlotte. It was an atypical move.

And while it left questions about why the party would leave a party document unamended in the face four years of changes, it also raised issues about the process in other areas. Always keen to be on top of any potential delegate selection rules changes for the next cycle, FHQ watched with bated breath but ultimately to no avail. Reporting was light on the subject -- it is never really heavy -- and the convention came and went with no fanfare about 2024 rules. 

So did that mean that the Republican convention did with the party rules what it did with the platform, leaving them largely unchanged? Or were changes quietly pushed through that would shape and reshape how the process would work in this next cycle, forcing (prospective) candidates to adjust their and their campaigns' behavior along the way? 

The answer upon looking at the 2020 Rules of the Republican Party -- those that will govern the 2024 Republican presidential nomination process -- lean heavily, but not completely toward the former. 

Changes to the relevant sections of the rules coming out of the 2020 convention were minimal. 

Now, that does not mean that the process is locked in and codified for the 2024 cycle. For much of the post-reform era the Republican Party set its rules at the convention and that was that. Those were the rules that would provide guidance for the next cycle despite any need for changes that might arise in the intervening period. This differed from a Democratic Party that routinely reexamined and tinkered with its rules between cycles. 

But that protocol changed after 2008. Coming out of the St. Paul convention, Republicans charged a committee -- the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee -- with considering changes to certain aspects of the 2012 GOP presidential nomination process (the then-Rule 15 on the election, selection, allocation and binding of delegates). And from that effort the RNC adopted changes codifying the positions of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina at the beginning of the calendar and required (for the 2012 cycle) that states with contests before April 1 provide for a proportional allocation of their national convention delegates. [Although it did not formally end up in the rules, the RNC in 2011 added definitions for what constituted proportional allocation.]

That same basic operating procedure extended to the 2016 cycle, but it was formalized with the addition of Rule 12 that allowed the party to make changes to the rules governing the Republican National Committee and those that affect the convening of the next convention. Rule 12 gave the RNC Rules Committee the ability to make changes on a majority vote that then had to be approved by a three-quarters supermajority of the full RNC. Under the new rule, the RNC formally inserted the proportional allocation guidance (with some modification) from 2011 into the rules for the 2016 cycle and specified penalties for both allocation violations and timing violations

Rule 12 survived the 2016 convention in Cleveland, but the convention also adopted rules creating a specific Temporary Committee on the Presidential Nominating Process. Its only accomplishment ahead of the largely uncontested 2020 Republican presidential nomination process was eliminating a primary debates sanctioning committee.

History lessons aside, what does all of this mean for the rules package that emerged from the 2020 Republican National Convention? Again, the changes were minimal, but the main consideration here is whether Rule 12 survived intact to see another cycle. And the answer there is yes. The amendment rule carried over into the rules that will govern the 2024 process largely unchanged. And that was only a technical change, removing a date in 2018 and replacing with language that will work without amendment moving forward. [Instead of having the rules finalized before September 30, 2018, the party now has to make any changes on or before "September 30 two years prior to the year in which the next national convention is to be held."]

And that is really it. 


...for now.

There were no changes to Rule 16 (on the selection and allocation of delegates) or Rule 17 (on penalties for any Rule 16 violations). And in perhaps a mark of how hastily the 2020 convention rules were assembled, Rule 10(a)(10) remains as well. That is the rule creating the Temporary Committee on the Presidential Nominating Process, including how it should be empaneled in 2017 and complete its work by 2018. 

What we are all left with, then, is a baseline set of rules from which the RNC Rules Committee will operate under Rule 12 with 2024 in mind. With that rule still in place, there will very likely be changes made. But the question at this point is the extent to which the rules of the Republican Party will be changed from version 1.0. Will the process from 2020 largely carry over to 2024 with only technical changes to clean up items like the Rule 10(a)(10) issue above? Or will the committee and ultimately the party dig into Rules 16 and 17 and reconfigure the delegate allocation rules and their penalties? 

Again, they are working with a baseline set of rules and a considerable amount of room for some changes. 



Friday, February 12, 2021

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Nikki Haley and 2024

To say that Tim Alberta's pulling back of the curtain on a possible (probable?) Nikki Haley run for the Republican nomination in 2024 is thorough is an understatement. It is a great, if not opening salvo, then continuation of the filling out of her profile as the invisible primary trundles onward. 

Much is there to unpack, but FHQ will tease out a couple of things. 

First, Haley is checking the typical boxes of a prospective 2024 candidate. There is a book. The fundraising infrastructure is taking shape. But importantly, Alberta's profile also reveals that a loose campaign team is already coming into focus. Both Nick Ayers, formerly of Pawlenty's 2012 presidential bid, the Republican Governors Association and Vice President Pence's office, as well as pollster Jon Lerner seem to be in the Haley 2024 orbit. Both serve as an early marker in the staff primary that will come to define the emerging campaigns in 2022 and 2023. 

But the more interesting piece of the Haley 2024 puzzle is Alberta's narrative in general, painting the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador as straddling the with or against Trump fence. He poses a series of questions that get at the heart of what may confront Haley as a bid comes more into focus:
"First, Nikki Haley is going to run for president in 2024. Second, she doesn’t know which Nikki Haley will be on the ballot. Will it be the Haley who has proven so adaptive and so canny that she might accommodate herself to the dark realities of a Trump-dominated party? Will it be the Haley who is combative and confrontational and had a history of giving no quarter to xenophobes? Or will it be the Haley who refuses to choose between these characters, believing she can be everything to everyone?"
It is that last question that is evocative of past presidential runs. The split the difference and appeal to a wide swath of primary voters approach. It can work, but depending on how the rest of the field fills out and where the battle lines are drawn can also leave a candidate without a home. Not to jump back into "lanes," but that last option is awfully reminiscent of where Kamala Harris's 2020 run ended up. Trying to be just right -- and not too progressive or too moderate -- did not end up splitting the difference. It ended up leaving her in the middle of a primary electorate with what was perceived as an ill-defined message that instead of appealing to a wide swath only ended up reaching a small sliver of the 2020 Democratic primary electorate (before the voting actually began).

In any event, Haley looks like a go for a 2024 run. But how she navigates these questions will determine whether she is actually running in 2024.


Wednesday, February 10, 2021

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- The Republican "Lanes" in 2024

David Siders had a nice piece up at Politico yesterday describing the difficulty prospective 2024 Republican aspirants in the US Senate might have in distinguishing themselves during and after the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. 

But peppered throughout the article laying out the minefield that Republicans like Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or Marco Rubio or Ben Sasse may face was an old saw of recent nomination cycles: the "lanes" candidates presumably occupy in crowded and wide open presidential primary fields. 

Look, when prospective fields of presidential candidates are large, we all -- from casual onlookers to pundits/media to academics -- look for ways to group various candidates. It is a way of building a narrative around a simpler if not parsimonious concept. Bernie Sanders is the socialist candidate or Rand Paul appeals to the libertarian wing, to name a couple of examples. And while those are useful descriptions their usage is often too clever by half in the context of a process that most often requires some coalition building beyond the boundaries of the particular "lane" and/or sees some consolidation once candidates actually begin to win and lose primaries and caucuses during an election year. 

As Dave Hopkins wrote around this time two years ago on the same subject in the context of the budding 2020 Democratic field of candidates:
"...any conceptual model of nomination politics needs to incorporate a large random error term, representing the varying effects of personal charisma, persuasive advertising, memorable debate performances, catchy slogans, journalistic takedowns, verbal gaffes, and other factors that have proved difficult to anticipate yet can be just as influential as substantive positions or group membership in shaping voters' evaluations of the candidates."
And that holds even more now, two years out from any of these Republicans likely entering the 2024 race. "Lanes," to the extent they exist, bear some value but not a ton. And they are of little value this far away from any campaigning that may happen in 2023 much less any voting in the 2024 primaries. 

It is mostly too early for "lanes" chatter and 2024. And that is largely a function of the lodestar still exerting a tremendous amount of gravity within the Republican Party right now: Donald Trump. Siders lays out the anti-Trump lane and much more crowded pro-Trump lane where all the prospective candidates are attempting to separate themselves from each other. And while those "lanes" may exist now, they will continue to evolve as we all gain more information about the 2024 process. Trump will play some role, but it remains to be seen just how big that will be. 

Will he run? 

If he does not, then how will the field develop and respond to that? 

Appealing to Trump supporters will still be high on a number of candidates' lists of priorities, but it may not be the top one after the midterm elections as candidates begin in earnest to position themselves for a 2024 run. And that is really the value of Siders's article. It shows just how far there is to go in how prospective 2024 Republican primary voters view and gravitate toward particular candidates. A pro- and anti-Trump frame may be appropriate now, but that may not be the case later in the invisible primary as things become more visible. 




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Friday, January 29, 2021

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Actions versus Words

Talk can be cheap in politics. 

Recently, FHQ wrote a bit about Sen. Josh Hawley's most recent denial that he is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. And that is a good case in point. Sure, it is early enough in the 2024 invisible primary; early enough that those sorts of nays now turn into ayes or maybes later. But the bottom line is that those words are not really worth following at this point. Well, perhaps they are worth following but with the usual grains of salt. 

Instead, the better metrics to assess whether some particular candidate is running for -- albeit not necessarily in -- any given presidential is what a candidate and those potential surrogates around them are doing. Are they hiring staff? Are they running ads? Are they releasing a book? Are they fundraising (or trying to)? 

Sure, it is much much too early for any candidate to be running ads or hiring staff with 2024 specifically in mind, but that does not mean there are no maneuverings quietly occurring behind the scenes. Left for (politically) dead after the events at the Capitol on January 6, there has been some circling of the wagons behind Hawley in the time since as the Republican Party has generally settled on an overall less reactionary strategy. This and the fact that actions are more important than mere words in the invisible primary was epitomized earlier this week when news broke that the Senate Conservatives Fund was coming to the defense of Missouri's junior senator. Now, that may mean propping Hawley up for reelection or for a potential 2024 presidential bid. Regardless, it is indicative of some part of the broader Republican Party coalition acting on his behalf; something Sen. Hawley would certainly not turn down if any 2024 run were to happen. 

Often it is said to follow the money in politics. Well, that is part of the invisible primary equation, but not all of it. And those things matter more in candidate emergence than words alone. 



Thursday, January 28, 2021

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- RNC Neutrality in 2024

One of the parlor games of the moment inside and outside the beltway in DC is the hunt for any break between the Republican Party (in its many forms) and former President Donald Trump. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly has no desire to speak to Trump again, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is headed down to Florida for a fundraiser and will speak with the former president in the process. But again, that is just one facet of the Republican Party, the party-in-government. 

The formal party apparatus itself, the RNC, recently broke with how it dealt with the president in 2019 ahead of the 2020 presidential primaries. Ronna Romney-McDaniel, the recently re-elected chair of the Republican National Committee, told the Associated Press in an interview...

“The party has to stay neutral. I’m not telling anybody to run or not to run in 2024. That’s going to be up to those candidates going forward. What I really do want to see him do, though, is help us win back majorities in 2022.” [McDaniel's response when asked whether she wanted to see Trump run again in the next presidential election.]

While that is a formal declaration of the chairwoman and is consistent with the rules regarding the conduct of the RNC in contested presidential nomination cycles, it differs from the national party's approach to 2020. It was, after all, at the RNC winter meeting in 2019 when the party stopped short of formally endorsing the president's renomination and reelection, but passed a resolution lending Trump the party's "undivided support." [The difference between a full endorsement and the symbolic show of unanimous support of the president among the party membership was one rooted in financial support (that an endorsement would have carried). But it should be noted that the RNC and the Trump reelection forces had already united by that point.]

Now, conditions are different in 2021 than they were in 2019. Trump is no longer the sitting president as he was then. Additionally, McDaniel's comments are not a reflection of any formal vote of the RNC membership (but merely a recitation of the party rules on the matter) as opposed to 2019. But in the end, formal or not, they mark a departure from the party's 2019 position and creates some light between the party and its (formal) former standard bearer. 

However, it will likely be Trump moving forward who will freeze the potential field of 2024 Republican candidates and not the Republican National Committee. But this is one to track as the invisible primary lurches forward. 


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Wednesday, January 27, 2021

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Hawley and Shermanesque/Sherman-ish Statements

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Yesterday, Business Insider ran with a scoop that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) had briefly answered that he was not running for president in 2024. Now, on the surface that is both a splashy comment and scoop from someone who had since the 2020 election neither been shy about his 2024 intentions nor inactive on what one might call the invisible primary front. And even if neither of those are exactly true, Hawley's name has been bandied about in 2024 chatter and his actions -- particularly around the electoral vote tabulation in a joint session of Congress -- have been interpreted through a 2024 invisible primary lens as an attempted play at the Trump end of the Republican Party spectrum.

But here is the thing: This is not Hawley's first time saying no to a 2024 run. CNN asked him that question back in November 2020. His response? "I'm not."

Neither blunt denial, however, is all that Shermanesque. "No, I'm not running," and "I'm not" are not definitive declinations. Both leave the door wide open to, if not a change of heart, then to simply saying something along the lines of "I wasn't running then, but I am now," later on down the line. The trick for the Shermanesque statement is always whether one can effectively add "yet" to the end of the turndown response.

Compare "No, I'm not running," with Sherman's "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected." A "yet" can be added to the former but is much harder to tack onto the latter. Hawley, then, was not Shermanesque in either his November or January responses. 

But was he Sherman-ish? 

That is a different question spurred by a variation on the Shermanesque statement that gained some notoriety around the time of the 2018 midterms when the candidate side of the 2020 invisible primary was beginning to heat up. It was around that time that both Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) responded to 2020 questions with answers that looked like some variation on, "I intend to serve the full six years of my [Senate] term." Now, obviously, in O'Rourke's case that was rendered moot when he lost the election to Texas' incumbent, junior senator, Ted Cruz (R). But when he said it -- before the election -- serving the full Senate term was still at stake. 

But for Gillibrand, the statement, before and after the 2018 midterms, was not a clear denial. However, it, on the one hand, kind of painted her into a corner, but on the other, kept the door open to at least "exploring" a run for the 2020 Democratic nomination. The lengths of that exploration can be wide ranging. In her case, Gillibrand ran for 2020 -- and with a formal entry -- up until August 2019. But she never ran in 2020.

The key in the Sherman-ish statement is that "painting oneself into the corner" bit. It is not a definitive "no," but it does potentially set up roadblocks to entry later. No one wants to start a campaign off by having to answer "why did you change your mind/why are you abandoning your word and/or constituents to run?" questions (not that that is any serious obstacle).

The true measure of running or not running is less what the prospective candidates say and more about what they do. Follow those actions and one will get a much better sense of what is happening in the invisible primary. 

In Hawley's case, the statements have been neither Shermanesque nor Sherman-ish, but his actions have maybe pointed elsewhere. Yes, that includes his very public position-taking on the electoral college tabulation. But it also includes things like out-of state fundraisers (like the one that got canceled in Florida in the wake of the events of January 6).



Saturday, January 26, 2019

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Republicans Opting Out of Primaries and Caucuses for 2020

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the movements during the days that recently were...

FHQ will say that it has quite enjoyed David Drucker's periodic check ins with Republican state parties about their plans for 2020 delegate selection. Some are opting to drop presidential primaries in favor of caucuses, while others a contemplating dropping their caucuses.1 And as he noted in his initial dispatch about South Carolina Republicans forgoing a presidential primary is standard protocol during a cycle where an incumbent Republican president is seeking renomination.

Incumbent renomination cycles are littered with examples of the scaling down of delegate selection operations. Florida and Michigan, famous rules breakers in the 2008 cycle for scheduling primaries in  calendar positions too early based on national party rules, were repeat offenders along with Arizona in 2012. Those too-early primaries forced Democratic parties in those states to opt for caucuses that could be scheduled later in the process. The same was true during a competitive cycle in 2000 when the Republican Party allowed February contests, but the Democratic Party did not. Several Republican-controlled states held early primaries that cycle that potentially put Democrats in their states in a bind. The way out for those Democratic state parties -- in Arizona and Michigan, oddly enough -- was to hold caucuses that could be scheduled in compliant calendar positions.

Of course, it is worth pointing out that the above scenarios all differ from what is happening among Republican state party actors ahead of the 2020 primaries and caucuses. None of these parties are opting out of primaries or caucuses because of something out of their control (eg: the date of a state-funded primary out of compliance with national party rules).

But even this is fairly typical. And the answer ultimately is based in reasoning that we see layered into election law in a number of states. It is not unusual to see states with laws that eliminate primaries, presidential or otherwise, when there is just one candidate on the ballot.

Yes, it is perhaps presumptuous for Republican actors to assume that President Trump will remain unopposed for the Republican nomination in 2020. The ballots, after all, have not been set as of yet. Of course, through another lens, the act of choosing a caucus over a primary can also be viewed as protective of the president.

But another reason this is more customary on the Republican side -- standard protocol as described above -- is that the rules of the Republican Party have always allowed state committees to choose delegates to the national convention. That institutional valve has traditionally allowed Republican state parties to cancel primaries as New York, for example, has in uncompetitive Republican nomination cycles (see 2004), or for state parties to go the caucus route rather than conduct a primary as South Carolina Republicans have done in the past (particularly in the era prior to 2008 when state parties were on the hook for primary costs).

So what is happening, or potentially is happening, in Kansas -- the state Republican party likely opting out of its caucuses next year -- is not unusual. What may be considered unusual in today's light is what Kansas Republicans did in 1996, a competitive Republican nomination cycle. Not only did the Republican-controlled state government decide not to fund the presidential primary in the state, but the state party opted not to hold caucuses and allocated delegates via its state committee.

The reason? The party thought native son, Bob Dole, would win anyway. Kansas Republicans in 2019 may feel the same way about President Trump, but at least he is an incumbent president. Times change, but these types of activities are not unusual.


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1 The latter is a cost-saving measure for the state party.

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Elsewhere in the invisible primary...

1. Gillibrand's hired a press secretary with some connections to New Hampshire.

2. Speaking of the Granite state, no, Harris has not visited yet, but her campaign's first state-based field director hire is for New Hampshire.

3. Exploratory committee: √; planning a trip to Iowa: Buttigieg is working on it.

4. There are undoubtedly Biden allies in Michigan who would support a White House bid by the former vice president, but there may be fewer in the sixth congressional district if the district Democratic Party chair is any indication.

5. Paul Kane looks in on the House Democrats considering 2020 runs.

6. Early travel plans among those Democrats who have announced include Puerto Rico. [I don't know that I buy the headline that Iowa should move over. When the formation of the primary calendar is more orderly, there is more certainty that allows candidates and campaigns to look further down the calendar to other contests/constituencies. Iowa will be fine.]

7. Finally, longshot presidential contender and former West Virginia state senator, Richard Ojeda quietly bows out of the 2020 race.


Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Filling Nomination Vacancies That Don't Exist

As the echo from last week's Democratic National Convention faded over the weekend, it gave way to a flurry of early week comments and reactions from and about Republican nominee, Donald Trump. That, in turn, has yielded a renewed discussion about a general election campaign without the New York businessman. However, whereas before the convention -- before the Republican Party nominated Trump in Cleveland -- that discussion focused on feeble efforts to unbind the delegates and throw the convention into chaos, the post-convention scenarios are perhaps even more far-fetched.

And all of it is centered on Rule 9 of the Rules of the Republican Party:


For the sake of clarity, let FHQ state this: Rule 9 is about filling vacancies not creating them. Those who have skipped over the title of the rule and jumped right to "death, declination, or otherwise" have missed the point of the rule. In doing that, most have put entirely too much emphasis on that "otherwise" condition for causing a vacancy.

But again, the intent of the rule is to fill any vacancies in the event that a nominee dies, declines the nomination or falls somewhere in between (neither dead nor able to decline the nomination). That is the intent of "otherwise". It fills in that gap between those two bookends.

So, there is no vacancy in either spot on the Republican ticket at this time in early August and there will not be unless one of those conditions above is met. Trump dropping out -- a declination -- would seem to be the most probable, though the odds of that are long.


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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

The Latest Installment of Stop Trump and the Rules

Throughout primary season Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, repeated a familiar refrain. Whether asked about the possible nomination of Trump or the New York businessman's potential impact on the party platform, Priebus kept saying essentially the same thing: it is up to the delegates. The intent now as then is the same. It is a balance between a party apparatus wanting to assure those affiliated with it that has some control over a process but that does not want it to appear as if it has its thumb on the scale. That is a balancing act that is tough under normal conditions, but takes on a heightened level of difficulty when a party is divided and/or has a unique frontrunner/presumptive nominee.

In 2016 the Republican Party has both. It has an unconventional presumptive nominee who has not only faced resistance all along, but who has reactivated traditional dividing lines within the party and animated dormant or latent ones.1 And both facets feed each other. Seemingly every word or deed from Donald Trump fuels the fire of opposition that has been longer in duration than that of any other cycle since the nearly evenly matched fight for the 1976 Republican nomination between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

The difference from 1976 to now is that Trump warded off all of his challengers on his way to a clear majority of bound delegates. Yet, pockets of resistance remain, small though they may be when compared to the full population of national convention delegates, and continue to search for outlets for their collective opposition to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The latest, spurred by an organizing minority faction of delegates, revisits the oft-discussed proposal to unbind the delegates through a change of the Rules of the Republican Party at the convention in Cleveland. An alternative change -- a conscience clause -- would allow delegates an out if they disagree with the presumptive nominee to whom they are bound.

Either proposal makes enough sense in theory (for that minority faction), but getting to that point -- a rules change -- is another endeavor altogether. There are a couple of layers to this. First, the path leads through the Convention Rules Committee. Some have argued that it would take just 57 votes to change the rules; to unbind the delegates or at the very least provide some of them with an opportunity to opt out of supporting Trump in a roll call vote on the floor of the convention.

But that is an oversimplification that obscures two important points:
1) It largely ignores the membership of the committee. The majority of the publicly known members of the Convention Rules Committee are members of the RNC themselves. That suggests at least something about the motivations of the committee. While they may not necessarily be Trump supporters, members of the RNC -- national committeemen and committeewomen and state party chairs -- are more likely than the elected at-large and congressional district delegates to defend the bulk of the rules that govern the Republican nomination process. To be clear, these automatic delegates on the Convention Rules Committee are not stooges of the Republican National Committee. The three of them from each state are elected at the state level and carry with them to national party functions the diversity of views represented across the country. That said, those delegates are more likely to fall in line with the balancing act described above; to carefully consider not only rules changes, but their implications as well.

All this is to say that those members of the Convention Rules Committee may not support Trump (or be bound to him on the roll call vote), but they have a common interest in A) (theoretically) defending the current rules2 and B) avoiding the sort of chaos that detracts from the goal of the modern national convention. In other words, letting a rules fight get out of the Committee and onto the floor hurts the ability of the party to demonstrate some semblance of unity before a national audience.3

2) It is also worth noting that the bar is not actually as high as 57 votes -- a simple majority of the 112 member Convention Rules Committee -- to change the rules. That is the surest way of making a change, but there are other, perhaps more plausible goals for those seeking to halt a Trump nomination or at the very least make his getting to a formal nomination more difficult. If the Stop Trump delegates fail to get an unbinding rules change through Rules, the current rules do allow them the ability to send a minority report (amendment) to the floor for consideration by the convention. That maneuver, under the provisions of Rule 34, only requires the support of one quarter of the membership of the Convention Rules Committee (or 23 votes). This is a pretty limited power, however. Such an amendment (from a minority faction) can be tabled and very likely would be if the chair of the convention does not back the move.

Limited though that power could be, getting a minority report to the floor would be a step up from the   small scale backlash from Ron Paul supporters in Tampa in 2012. Again, the formal party within the convention would be motivated to avoid the 2012 ante being upped in 2016. As such, this is a bit of leverage for those who want Stop Trump. This was likely at least part of the calculus behind Priebus's call to state party leaders to assess the extent of anti-Trump sentiment among the 56 delegations. Getting a sense of that whip count both in the Rules Committee and on the floor is an important piece of information

The flashpoint for all of this -- this back and forth -- is the Convention Rules Committee meeting before the convention commences. A very likely middle ground is that the Rules Committee report to the full convention is likely to keep the bulk of the rules in place for consideration after the convention in 2017-18. That means that any move to unbind the delegates or provide for a conscience clause is likely to be dead on arrival or barring that doomed to fall short.

Yet, the one tweak that might make it out of committee that also might provide some level of protest against Trump is some variation of the Blackwell amendment tabled at the RNC winter meeting in Charleston earlier this year. The mechanics of this can be technical, but essentially what the amendment would do is clean up the language in Rule 16 (the rule binding delegates to candidates) and bring it in line with Rule 40 (the rule that lays out the process for placing candidates in nomination). As it stands now, only those votes (whether bound or from the small number of unbound delegates) for candidates placed in nomination are counted. Votes for, say, Rubio or Kasich -- candidates who control a majority of delegates in fewer than eight states -- would not be counted. Even if they were released, those delegates votes would only be recorded if they opted to vote for Trump (or Cruz if he hangs on to his delegates and has his name placed in nomination).4

Relaxing the provisions of Rule 16 to allow votes for other (now) non-qualifiers to be recorded and counted by the secretary of the convention is not a cure-all. In fact, as this latest, delegate-driven attempt to derail Trump's nomination is still in its infancy, the idea may seem quite unpalatable to those folks. However, while it is also a limited bargaining chip, it one that might give those in the Stop Trump faction one last outlet of opposition to Trump's nomination.

Of course, there is still about a month until the convention and this latest Stop Trump iteration may not have crescendoed yet. Given where the other attempts have ended up, history, it seems, does not appear to be on their side. And the balancing act is all up to the delegates.


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1 This likely requires further explication. No, Trump has not necessarily directly charged the historical fault lines within the party. However, none of the factions in it have been able to coalesce around an effective plan to slow down or prevent a Trump nomination. The lack of agreement there has had the indirect effect of exacerbating the extant divisions.

2 This is certainly true if there is any stalemate on the committee regarding the package of rules change recommendations Rules makes or individual changes the committee may discuss. In both cases, if the committee grinds to a halt, the likelihood of the status quo rules (or something very close to them) carrying over increases.

3 That may, admittedly, be difficult regardless in 2016.

4 That does not seem likely at this point.


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